Contributing a Standby Content Part

Plug-ins can also implement a part for displaying alternative content when the intro page is in standby mode. For example, the platform defines a standby part that will show a cheat sheet for related intro content. The part is launched using a page link with a specialized URL. Standby parts are launched using a URL containing a special command for showing a standby part, such as http://org.eclipse.ui.intro/showStandby?partId=somePartId. The part is defined in the standbyContentPart subelement in the org.eclipse.ui.intro.configExtension extension. An id, pluginId, and class must be specified for the part. The class must implement IStandbyContentPart. The following snippet shows how the platform defines a standby part for showing cheat sheets.

   <extension point="org.eclipse.ui.intro.configExtension">
      <standbyContentPart
            id="org.eclipse.platform.cheatsheet"
            class="org.eclipse.platform.internal.CheatSheetStandbyContent"
            pluginId="org.eclipse.platform"/>
   </extension>
This cheat sheet could be launched from an intro page using a link subelement whose URL is http://org.eclipse.ui.intro/showStandby?partId=org.eclipse.platform.cheatsheet&input=org.eclipse.pde.helloworld. This IntroURL would launch the org.eclipse.platform.cheatsheet standby content part and set its input to "org.eclipse.pde.helloworld". The detailed mechanics for implementing a standby part are beyond the scope of this discussion. See IStandbyContentPart and its related classes for more information.